coffeebarconfessions

At this point in my Fibromyalgia journey my flares are pretty predictable. Two to four times a month I will suffer from a bevy of viral symptoms. In the past it has felt like Shingles. Luckily it's been a few years since my symptoms were that extreme. These days my flares usually start with a severely hellacious mood. Right as I am about to commit myself to a rubber room buckled tight into a straight jacket the inside of my mouth will shred to pieces. This reminds me there is a physical reason for my emotional turmoil. Then the boil comes. For some unbeknownst reason my face seems to be the choice spot for the last year or so. Next enters the aching face, throbbing skull, congestion and generous smattering of pain and malaise across my body. There's more but that's how the ball gets rolling... Last week I started feeling bad but it was nothing like the aforementioned. I was pretty much incapacitated with pain and fatigue. So while half of me freaked out, convinced I was dyi...

Last week we celebrated the 237th anniversary of American independence. For some odd reason a key phrase in the preamble of our constitution kept reverberating around my mind. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Actually it was more ' the pursuit of happiness'  part I kept dwelling on. Like it was a foreign concept I just learned existed. With a shock of awareness I realized that's exactly what happened. Because I forgot about it. See the pursuit of happiness is a frivolous concept when your basic needs aren't met. It is only after sleep, shelter, safety and food are secured that a being can advance onto the next stages of societal engagement. Unfortunately getting horribly sick when every doctor told me I should be completely healthy violated my safety in a major way. My inability to work or care for myself threatened my procurement of shelter and food. And the illness itself robbed me of my sleep. No wonder I wasn't working towards happy, I was j...

Perhaps the biggest challenge I've faced over the last year with Fibromyalgia concerns sleep. At times it's become so out of control I'd watch the sky slowly brighten with dawn as tears of utter frustration streamed down my face. Unable to do much more than pop more pills and try to ignore the mounting anxiety claiming my psyche. The popping pills thing didn't work, though. I'd either be too dulled out to do much of anything the next day or sleep until two o'clock in the afternoon. Certainly not moving towards the illusive forward progress of life. But not sleeping leaves me unable to function, too, pinning me into a nice little box of my own insanity.  So I decided to institute my own version of sleep hygiene. Staying up all hours of the night writing left me wired and panicked. Sleeping all day made me unable to participate in life. And procrastinating all evening on doing the dishes and packing my husband's lunch insured if I did get tired, I'd still ...

Last week I lowered my life-changing expectations to what I felt was moderate. The goal was to maintain some of the good habits I tried to adapt with sweeping precision a few weeks before. I tried, I really did, to hang in there. Made the bed every day, got up early to exercise a couple of times, cooked dinner every night. Things in my right mind I believe should already be happening. By Thursday I was a complete wreck. I couldn't sleep the night before so didn't wake up until 9am. It was 91 degrees outside. Thinking I could sneak in a quick walk before the heat became stifling we scurried around the block. I even came home and did yoga. Boy was I draggin', but when I went to bathe I couldn't because the water had been shut off. A broken pipe sorely lacking in prior notice. So I kinda freaked out and became negative and cross. I mean I was already on the border, but this pushed me into full-on grouchy. After brushing my teeth and washing my face with bottled water I ...

Hearken the good tidings my friends, they have found the cause of Fibromyalgia! With rapt interest I poured over the scientific studies and research papers to try and understand what had been discovered. Most of them seemed to start with the disclaimer that a large portion of the medical community believe Fibromyalgia is psychosomatic. Until now.  I'm not going to lie, t hat pissed me off pretty good. Like now that they "know" there is something real going on they can admit they thought we were all a bunch of loonies inflicting sick on ourselves. But I suppose I knew that would happen... I am still excited to find out what exactly descended on my reality like a hell-storm eight years ago and stole my life so I kept reading. Turns out it all goes back to...the blood vessels in my palms? Huh? Are you kidding me? Blood vessels in my hands are responsible for fatigue, insomnia, a depressed immune system and pain so profound I wanted to die? I'm sorry, but it seemed so unb...

It hit. The colossal flare I knew in the back of my mind I was marching toward but somehow thought a positive attitude could prevent. See I did it again. I've done it lots of times. Convinced myself my behavior causes direct consequence to my health. To a small degree it does, but in actuality it's resoundingly the other way around. I do think it's normal to question "living sick" every so often by challenging the status quo. Normal, even if the outcome is terribly devastating to any sense of progress a person tries to make. So here I sit all pissed off and bent out of shape I because I am being horribly punished for... trying to improve my life. The absurdity makes me so angry at this stage in my journey. Real, normal, healthy life is just out of my grasp, a feather's whisper away from my reach. It mine as well be miles, though. Closing the gap on living sick and living like a human being with chronic illness is a long and arduous road. Some days I don't ...

I was raised with a good-old fashioned work ethic. You do your best, consider a job completed ONLY when the outcome is satisfactory and don't stop or give in when it gets tough. So that is how I lived my life. Powering through whatever obstacles were in my way and not stopping until I could present a job well done. I pushed my way up a career ladder I did not want, but did it anyway, because that's what was expected of me. I worked 12 hours a day running up and down the state of California, making sure enough lipstick and eyeshadow had been sold in order to keep my bosses happy. It was stressful and consumed my life. But I did it because that is what I was taught to do, achieve what is expected of me. Life is tough and only the tough make anything of themselves, so get goin' girl! That attitude is the single most detrimental contributor to my CFS/Fibromyalgia story. Oh how I wish I had acknowledged that lifestyle was dynamite lit on both ends, how overwhelmingly unbalanced ...